Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Fallout 3 hit the stores a couple of weeks ago, and is nothing short of awesome. Following the lines of the original game, and games like Bioshock and System Shock 2, Fallout 3 promises something that most games can't...

...reeeeeaaaaally catchy swing music. (Plus a lunchbox and bobblehead if you get the collector's edition.)

Plot: Boom.

Mankind did the unthinkable: They nuked the planet.

Luckily for you that right before the shockwave of radiation foofed their hair out their heads like dandelions in a spring breeze, your ancestors managed to escape to The Vaults. The Vaults were designed to comfortably (and indefinitely) house entire city populations safely underground in the event of nuclear fallout. They'd simply wait underground sipping fruity girly beverages that come with whole chunks of pineapple and little umbrellas, and enjoy themselves until enough time passed that they could once again walk on the surface of the newly paved over Earth.

But not so for the survivors in Vault 101.

You see, over generations the Vault Leader's role slowly morphed from "guy in charge" to "unquestioned King of the stink people", (I say stink people because after living for generations underground, even in the cleanest of vaults, chances are you are genetically born with an odor of corn chips and feet.) and his lineage became that of royalty. So King Smells-like-cheese decided that for the safety of you, your family, and everyone living in the Vault, the residents of Vault 101 would live there forever.

And as pissed off as this made SOME of the residents, no one wants to be the first guy to "peek his head out and check" to see if the really deadly face melting radiation is still there.

So they lumped it.

Besides, life in The Vault was pretty good. Sure it was rusty and falling apart, and okay - so the population had died off, people were getting really sick and occasionally rabbit sized mutated cockroaches known as "Radroaches" chewed up some kid's mother - but hey, you still had WHISKEY!

I'm serious. This game is ALL about the whiskey. You might have to cobble together armor from the skins of homeless people, and sure, a lot of people live in houses made completely out of poo because there are no materials to build REAL homes, but you still have your whiskey. You find bottles of it EVERYWHERE and walk around a corner without clanging through stacks of discarded containers. Which just goes to prove the old saying:

"Where there's swill, there's a way."

I'll let the horridness of that statement sink in for a moment.

ANYWAY, you dear old Dad figures out that the Vault Leader is lying to his community, and figures out a way to escape from the Vaults! He made it to freedom! ...and left you behind with the whiskey and the giant cockroaches.

Father of the year, he is not.

So Pops splits, which pisses off the Vault Leader who decides that he has to kill YOU for no other reason than to further the plot, which means that you have to escape and track down your father - probably because he skipped out on child support. You fight your way out of the vault that has been your home since birth, and over power the highly trained security guards with a few well-placed BB-gun shots to the head.

Luckily for you that A) you have a BB gun, and 2) years of living in the vaults has turned people into easily decapitated meat puppets with no hit points to speak of.

You've done it! You've escaped the vaults, and blink directly into the sun for the first time as you realize the truth: The world has survived, the vaults weren't the only safe haven, and somehow even though it is the future and there are robots and laser guns...

...it's still somehow 1945.

Which is awesome because that means that you're allowed to hit women and they can't do anything about it because they're all girly and weak.

Game play: Fallout 3 has the look and feel of a first person shooter, but is melded seamlessly with the percentage mechanics of your standard "old school" role playing game. Very reminiscent of Oblivion, but with more guns and mutants getting decapitated by BB-gun blasts, the game is set in the post apocalyptic future..past...

...and can be at times, "eerie as all hell".

If you don't think that 1940's swing music can be frightening, then you've never been attacked by radioactive mutant zombie ghouls while some chick is singing in a Trans Atlantic accent. In fact, if there is something more frightening than someone crooning ala Slim Whitman while badly stitched giant mutants swing at your head with a parking meter, I don't want to know what it is.

This game has ALREADY damaged my heart.

Giant bugs, exploding faces, giant cannibal mutant Frankenstein looking bastards who laugh as the charge you because you're reloading like a retard - this game has it all. And the best part is, every action has a consequence and affects how the NPC's view you. Think Fable, but with more bear traps and melted faces.

If you want to be good, then the townspeople reward you, thank you, even bring you gifts. If you want to be bad and say....

...explode a town full of orphans, old people and normal folk just trying to get by because a perfect stranger offered you 500 bottle caps to do so?

You could do that too. You would probably be the most vile and evil person ever to walk the earth, even if it IS just a video game, but you could do it. Right Radar?

Conclusion and Rating: I give this game the highest score that I possible can - A double A plus (A++), two paws WAY up, and a whole bunch of barely contained boobies.

The game is phenomenal, and quite honestly gives you that old feeling of "man do I want to call in JUST to play" that comes so rarely with the flood of video games that have hit the market. Fallout 3 is easily one of, if not THE best title to hit the shelves this year and I highly recommend it.

You won't be disappointed. Unless you blow up the town full of orphans.

Right Radar?

-Coyote